Car recall in India

Substandard or faulty components often force car manufacturers in India and around the world to order a recall of their vehicles. While it does take a toll on the company’s image, it also saves it from a possibly bigger humiliation in case of mass faults being reported and causing accidents. Several companies have therefore issued a number of recalls.

Honda India issued a massive recall of over 1.9 lakh cars due to the faulty Takata airbags which have been giving automakers nightmare the world over.

Maruti Suzuki called back 75,419 units of Baleno and 1,961 units of Dzire for an upgrade to the airbag controller software in both the models. The company had earlier issued a recall 1 lakh A-Star cars for a fuel tank glitch.

Ford India recalled 48,700 Ecosports for faulty brake, fuel lines and rear seat. Also in April 2016, 42,300 units of Figo and FigoAspire were called back due to software glitches in their airbag operation.

General Motors (GM) India had to recall 1,01,597 units of Chevrolet Beat (diesel) to replace faulty clutch pedal lever in December 2015.

However the largest vehicle recall in India was by Volkswagen during the global emission cheating scandal where the German automotive giant ordered the call back of 3.24 lakh cars in December of 2015.

This change is happening thanks to GST (goods and services tax) being in place, which has eliminated various and varied state levies such as excise duty, VAT (value-added tax), infrastructure cess, octroi etc.

Dheeraj Hinduja, chairman at India’s second largest truck maker Ashok Leyland, prefers a low profile, but with managing director Vinod Dasari leaving at the end of the month, he says he’s become more “hands-on”.